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Melilla and the Border Exceptionality

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Melilla and the Border Exceptionality MELILLA AND THE BORDER EXCEPTIONALITY Ana González-Páramo Carmen González del Rosal Amin Lejarza Virginia Rodríguez Gonzalo Fanjul By porCausa Foundation February 2019 INDEX SUMMARY I. THE BORDER AS IDENTITY From exceptionality to impunity Melilla: Illustration and laboratory of a broken migratory model II. THE GEOPOLITICAL EXCEPTIONALITY III. ECONOMIC, LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE PARTICULARITIES IV. THE EXCEPTIONAL RELEVANCE OF MIGRATION, SECURITY AND CONTROL ANNEX 1 THE REPATRIATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN MOROCCO AND SPAIN AND SUMMARY DEPORTATIONS ANNEX 2 THE AGREEMENT ON NON-ACCOMPANIED CHILDREN ANNEX 3 LAW-ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES PRESENT IN MELILLA • Local Police of MelillaPort Police • National Police • Customs Surveillance Service (SVA) • Civil Guard • Army • National Intelligence Centre (CNI) • A future European Border and Coast Guard? [email protected] - www.porcausa.org - twitter/@porcausaorg - facebook/porCausa 2 SUMMARY Melilla is an exceptional territory. A European enclave in the African continent, a border to emphasise one of the deepest inequality gaps in the planet. This border characterizes and defines the city: it isolating Melilla geographically, defining its economy and giving Melilla an essential role in migration control policies to Europe. These three features tell the story about the exceptionality of the autonomous city, which in turn protects the impunity of its authorities before judicial, political and journalistic scrutiny. This perpetuates a broken migratory model of which Melilla is an illustrative example and a political laboratory. With this work, the porCausa Foundation seeks to contribute to an informed public debate about the characteristics and consequences of a system, and the possibility of offering alternatives. I. THE BORDER AS IDENTITY The Autonomous City of Melilla is a territorial and administrative space defined by its geographical position. Its isolation and its condition as a European land border with Africa –being Ceuta the only other case– determine the economic, political and social structure of a city that separates two universes of prosperity and institutional development. Only in terms of income, according to the World Bank, the kilometres of fence that separate Spain from Morocco represent an inequality gap of more than 9 to 1. The particularities extend to the movement of people and goods, subject to the informality of some commercial transactions and a specific regulation that considers the relationship of neighbourhood with Morocco. But the exceptionality of Melilla as a border city goes much further. The about 90,000 inhabitants and 12 km2 that make up this space are perceived as a threatened territory which must be protected. Morocco has never recognized Spanish sovereignty over Melilla and Ceuta, but the main authorities are mostly concerned about border crime and, increasingly, irregular immigration. Over the past three decades, Melilla has been gaining relevance as a gateway for migration flows from Morocco, the sub-Saharan region and, more recently, Middle East countries. The accumulation of these elements results in a political economy of its own, with some outstanding features: • The existence of a Migration Control Industry in Southern Europe: As the investigations published by porCausa and others organisations have shown, the sophisticated immigration control policies of the European states have generated an ecosystem of companies, organisations and individuals that receives multimillion dollar amounts to manage control, reception and return of immigrants. These actors play a fundamental role in the economic, institutional and even architectural composition of the territories where they operate. [email protected] - www.porcausa.org - twitter/@porcausaorg - facebook/porCausa 3 They also have a strong influence in the creation of a public narrative on migrations as a threat to security, which justifies in turn greater investments. • The administrative and geographical exceptionality of the autonomous city, which excludes Melilla from the Schengen area of free mobility of persons, grants special fiscal conditions to its habitants and businesses, and feeds networks of informal trade between both sides of the border. • Occasionally, border isolation also translates into political isolation, which makes Melilla and other similar territories - Ceuta, Lampedusa, Lesbos, Valletta– in bridgeheads that must face by themselves the social, administrative and humanitarian challenges of migratory flows. Territories that the rest of Europe has chosen to ignore. From exceptionality to impunity The real or constructed threats that Melilla suffers contribute to the self-perception of the local population and its leaders, and justify a de facto state of exception, closing the city on itself and where they ignore or distort the rules that oblige all citizens and territories of the rest of Spain. The perpetuation of the so-called automatic border returns constitutes just an example of the string of political and legal irregularities that characterizes the action of local and state authorities: the conditions of the reception centres, the lack of protection of many immigrant children, the political and economic endogamy, the complicity of some media with presence in Melilla and the disproportionate dependence on public resources. It is not easy to break this self-absorption. Over the past decades, numerous local and external representatives of civil society, parties, religious groups, judges, journalists, ombudsman and international organizations have tried to introduce greater transparency, demand accountability and guarantee respect for fundamental rights in this territory. But his effort has hit a tangle of political and economic interests in which external authorities rarely want or can intervene. In the city-cage of Melilla, border exceptionalism translates into impunity. Melilla: illustration and laboratory of a broken migratory model Each of these elements helps to perpetuate within the Autonomous City deep internal inequalities and a broken migratory model whose direct and indirect consequences go far beyond acceptable. But the political importance of Melilla escapes the limits of its territory. Similarly with other border cities inside and outside Europe, this territory is at the same time an epitome of the global migration management model and a laboratory of the policies that have been developed for three decades. [email protected] - www.porcausa.org - twitter/@porcausaorg - facebook/porCausa 4 The next pages briefly develop three areas on which the exceptional character of Melilla as border city has been built: geopolitical, economic and security. II. THE GEOPOLITIC EXCEPTIONALITY Although it belongs to the territory of a Member State, Melilla has a special status within the EU On the one hand, its GDP per capita is between 75 and 90% of the average EU-27, which makes it a transition region and makes it a beneficiary of the European Regional Development Fund1 and the European Social Fund2. On the other, its particular location not only leaves it on the margins of free mobility and defence agreements that reach the rest of the Spanish territory, but it also adds to the relevance of the relationship with Morocco. • Exclusion of the Schengen area: According to the conditions of accession to the free mobility space of Schengen (1991), Spain would continue to apply to goods and travellers from Melilla the existing controls prior to their introduction into the customs territory of the EU. It also continues to apply the specific visa exemption regime for small border traffic between Melilla and the Moroccan province of Nador. Finally, for the nationals Moroccans not resident in the province of Nador who would like to enter exclusively in Melilla, a multiple-entry visa system limited to the city would remain in place. • Melilla is excluded from NATO automatic defence response mechanisms, although the Spanish State may request an intervention under the“emerging threats” assumption. • The “special relationship” with Morocco: The relationship between Spain and Morocco has always been complex and variable3. Since Morocco independence in 1956, the relations between both countries have been marked by latent conflicts (Western Sahara, claims about Spanish enclaves in North Africa and fishery resources, to name a few examples); with an intense bilateral agenda (as neighbours and national and European border, mainly due to the terrorist threat, drug trafficking, smuggling and lately the irregular immigration); and for strategic relations and regional rivalry in the Maghreb (mainly with Algeria and with France). 1 The Melilla FEDER Operational Program 2014-2020 has the specific objective of promoting economic growth supporting the intelligent growth and sustainability of its resources, including accessibility, tourism promotion and cultural heritage. 2 ESF 2014-2020, to support the creation, access, and improvement of employment and working conditions 3 See Haizam Amirah Fernández: Foreign Policy, Elcano Relations Spain-Morocco Report 2015. [email protected] - www.porcausa.org - twitter/@porcausaorg - facebook/porCausa 5 • Melilla is a strategic point of bilateral and plurilateral relations: The situation of this city and that of Ceuta were excluded from the Treaty of friendship, good neighbourhood and cooperation of 1991, where Spain and Morocco institutionalised a bilateral framework of periodic meetings at different political and administrative levels, but no mention is made
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